


Requiescat In Pace

by anglophilia



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Adam, Canon Bisexual Character, Demons, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Roadtrips, Slow Build, Supernatural Elements, Witchcraft, demon!ronan, happy end, human!adam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anglophilia/pseuds/anglophilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is about roadtrips and magic, about found families and demons, about death and love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a first sneak peak of a story I'm currently working on. 
> 
> Archive Warnings may change as the story evolves and tags will be added.
> 
> Please note that this is Pynch story - all other pairings happen on the side or are either mentioned briefly/are implied.

For Adam Parrish dying was easy. There wasn't really anything that held him to his life anyway; he had left his family when he was sixteen and had run away. Since then he had made friends, few, but good friends, very good friends indeed. Blue and Gansey where his new family, his true family. A bunch of teenage runaways. Blue Sargent, seventeen when Adam had run into her, serving in a run down diner in the middle of nowhere. Her short dark her, bound into a messy bun at the back of her head, the rest of her fine hair tamed with a variety of different, colorful hairclips. It had been that weird time of the day, when it wasn't really night anymore, but also not quite day, the dark and chill of the night making way for another impossible hot day. The glow of the neon sign too bright. It was a magical place.

He had overheard people in the last town talking about the place, about the good coffee and the motel the cheap motel on the opposite side, run by eerie women, who would read your future for a few pennies extra. How their prophecies would always come true. Adam was drawn to place because of the way people talked about it. It gave them chills, and eerie, uneasy feeling and yet they were drawn to it. "The Fox" and "300 Fox Way" were places where the impossible could become possible. Adam had once asked Blue why the motel was called 300 Fox Way; It wasn't like there were any other buildings for miles. Blue had just shrugged, looking out the window again, sticking her hand out of the Camaro, playing with the wind. "Because three is a magical number, Parrish, just like us", she had laughed, her looking red in the sun, the tips a bright turquoise. Her other hand had sneaked to the gear stick, her fingers lacing with Gansey's. He remembered how thankful he had been for their friendship, how jealous he had been of their relationship, how in love he had been with both of them. 

He would miss them. Miss their long roadtrips, taking them everywhere and anywhere. Miss camping on the roadside, stargazing. Miss having to visit every single historical place for Gansey and any magical place for Blue. But he was dying so they could have all this, so they could grow old together, in an old warehouse with lots of trees and flowers in the garden, like they had once described. Once, they had said then. Once, when we're ready to settle. It all had seemed so far away then, a dream easily fulfilled and impossible at the same time. He wondered if they were going to settle after his death, if it would change anything. He shook his head, they were born for the road, never resting, always on the move, for a life with endless possibilities.  
And Adam, Adam was ready to rest, because, in the end that's all that death was.  
Resting.  
Requiescam In Pacem.  
A smile curled at the ends of his lips. 

"What are you smiling at, Parrish?", a voice said next to him, sounding bored, carefully bored.  
Adam opened his eyes, blinking at the too bright light of the sun.  
The day he was going to die was a day at the beginning of July, summer was just starting, the air too hot to breathe sometimes, full of possibilities. It was his birthday.  
A soft breeze rolled over the field he was lying in, causing the grass to tickle his neck.  
To his left there was a pale figure, dark clothes and white skin a stark contrast, everything a stark contrast to nature. A black tattoo sneaking out of the back of the black tank top, dark lines gracing the neck and shoulders of the man. Adam knew it went over his whole back, a few dark lines running down to his legs. His hands ached to touch, but he also wanted to feel the warmth of the earth for a bit. There would be plenty of time for the rest. "An eternity", he thought.  
"I guess, I just saw my life flashing before me", he said  
"Why're you smiling then? It was shit anyway."  
Adam thought he should be taken aback by the words, but the man was always honest, it could be a brutal weapon, sharp and painful like a dagger, but mostly Adam appreciated it.  
And it was the truth, after all.  
"Some of it was good", he answered instead.  
"Gansey?", the man asked again.  
There was a short pause. The silence hanging heavily between them.  
"Gansey.", Adam nodded slightly, "and Blue."  
There was a pause again, longer this time, then the man took his hand into his, his cool palm a contrast to the warmth of the sun. A short squeeze. Then a pause. Adam held his breath for a second, then he closed his eyes and squeezed back.  
The warmth was gone. 

 

After all dying was easy when you were in love with death.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm terribly sorry, that I took so long, but the next chapters will come more frequently, I promise.   
> I also want to thank [mylittlemindpalace](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittlemindpalace/pseuds/mylittlemindpalace) for being a very lovely and very patient beta <3
> 
> That being said, we're finally dipping into the story, I hope you're excited.

The sun is burning down hot on the pavement, even hotter on the old car Adam Parrish is driving. The old ugly thing doesn't even have a fully functional radio and he's pretty sure air condition wasn't even invented when they built the car. He sighs. He can deal with the heat, he has both windows open and the air feels cold on his overheated skin, but the fact that the little dial to change radio stations has been broken for a few days now is slowly driving him insane. He's been listening to country station for three hours now and before that it's been some conspiracy theorist stuff. Normally he's glad for the music or the voices of the radio; they make him feel less lonely, make his trips more bearable, but he's been restless for days now. And he's in dire need of a job. He thought he could ask for a job as a mechanic again, but the last few businesses had turned him down. Another sigh. "In the next town", he thinks, "I will get a job in the next town." His foot on the gas gets heavier as the outlines of the town appear on the horizon. 

He arrives there in the early afternoon, sweaty, thirsty and his stomach growling. He thinks about whether he should get some food first, but decides he can still go after. The workshop in this town belongs to a guy named Hal, a tall, heavy man in his fifties. Dirt and grease stain his fingers and there are traces of old food in his dark beard. When Adam asks him for a job his eyes get sad and he shakes his head, one hand gesturing to the only two cars in the workshop. Hal tells him that this is the most work he's had in weeks. Adam nods. "I understand," he says and he does. Hal's telling him about the business of a friend of his brother-in-law, three towns south, they might need work there. Adam smiles and thanks him. All politeness and manners, masking his anger and irritation. Willing away his hunger - he might need to go another day without food. But his stomach decides to growl in that moment and Hal gives him an understanding look. 

Adam hates the pity in his eyes and voice as he tells him about a diner and motel outside of town. They might be fifty miles away, but the food is good and cheap there and the rooms are cheaper than in town. "But be careful, son, they're run by witches. Especially the motel, the blonde one there always gives me the chills. Can read ya mind and all. Told George he should be careful of red trucks and change his will, George is shruggin' it off, thinks the girl's crazy, probably had one or two glasses too much, but a week later he gets run over by a truck. A red truck." Hal's voice goes all deep and mysterious at the end, Adam does his best not too laugh. Telling someone to be careful of a red truck is the same as telling someone to be careful of a BMW in L.A. He still promises Hal to be careful, thanks him again for the tip and then he's on the road again.   
He stops one last time at the gas station to fill his tank and there he hears them talk again about the diner and the motel. The people are talking about it with the same awe and wonder he's heard in Hal's voice and when he asks the boy working the counter about it, he gives him a warning similar to Hal's. This time it involves pink flowers and a married man. When he thinks about going there, he can fill a chill running down his spine, but at the same time he's intrigued. He feels like treating himself to a warm dinner a nice bed. After all he can't remember the time he's had both. 

When he arrives, it's three in the morning and he's tired, the dark circles under his eyes even more prominent than usual. He parks the car at the motel parking lot and gathers his belongings -an old gym bag, half filled with clothes, his papers and some money. He's traveling light. Which is just a nice way of saying he's too poor to afford more.   
The motel is an old ugly thing, built sometime in the 50s, Adam guesses, painted in a faded pink, huge chunks of the paint already fallen off. 300 Fox Way - it says in bright neon signs, light blue and hot pink, their eerie glow visible from far away. A lighthouse in the desert.

He's greeted at the reception booth by a pale woman, surrounded by cloud of ice-white curls, the pale light inside making her look like a ghost, the blue and pink from the neon sign making her appearance even more surreal. Old, torn tarot cards are arranged in a strange pattern in front of her. She doesn't look up when he comes to a halt in front of her, just turns around a card. A priest wearing a white robe with a red stole. The card is facing the woman, but Adam is able to read the thick black letters on the bottom of the card: Magician. The woman smiles at her cards, then raises her head and fixates him from a pair of impossible dark eyes. Each reflecting a different color of the neon sign. Her voice is rough but soft, deep and warm, when she declares: "I expected you sooner, magician." Adam is baffled, how do you even react to something like this?   
"I'm actually a car mechanic," he answers dumbly.   
"For someone who knows shit about cars, that might seem like magic." Her smile deepens and she keeps her dark eyes on him. Adam shivers in the warmth of the night.   
"I need a room," he says, braver than he feels, "please." The smile on her face deepens, and she gets up to examine a board of keys in the back.   
Adam can now see that she's a bit smaller than him, her hair reaching down to her bright blue thighs. Her fingers glide over the colorful wooden pieces that dangle from the keys. Each of them look handmade with hand-carved numbers. Adam raises an eyebrow, a sigh escaping his lips.   
He's tired and hungry, he doesn't have time for this hocus pocus bullshit. Inside the woman clicks her tongue in disapproval and Adam swears she takes even longer out of spite. Finally she comes back with a key with a bright orange keychain, the number 33 carved into the wood.   
When he reaches for his wallet, she stops him. She tells him to have dinner first and pay the next day, when Calla is back. Apparently Calla is better at handling money than her.He thanks her and then proceeds to find his room. Up front the motel is still shabby, but to Adams surprise, its very clean and there are flowers everywhere, the sweet smell reminding him of his childhood home. 

He can handle it for a night, he thinks; there are still worse memories haunting him.   
The room is small, but clean too. The furniture is cobbled together from different styles and all in different colors, but everything is clean and smells fresh. The part he mostly hates about motels, and why he often decides to sleep in his car, apart from the money, is the weird smell most rooms have. A mixture of smoke, sweat and cheap cleaners. More memories from his childhood.   
He puts his bag on his bed, deciding to go for a quick shower and fresh clothes. 

It's nearly four when Adam crosses the road to the diner, painted in similar color as the motel with huge windows, that show a nearly empty room. Adam sees two people sitting at the bar and when he enters there is young couple making out in one of the booths. He quickly averts his eyes, deciding for a booth far away from them. He has his eyes fixed on the menu when the waitress comes, struggling to keep his eyes open, so he's startled by her friendly "Hi". His eyes need a moment to focus on the sight in front of him.  
Unlike the woman at the Motel, she has fine dark hair, tamed by an army of clips at the top of her head, leading to a messy bun at the back of her head. Short bangs and a fine strands of hair where framing her face. Bright green trees are dangling from her ears and her neck, her slim wrists are cluttered with bracelets in every color known to humankind. 

"You definitely need some coffee," she says, already scribbling on her notepad. He dumbly nods. "And the scrambled eggs, please."   
He closes the menu and puts it back behind the salt and pepper, the waitress already on her way to the kitchen.   
Adam had chosen a booth by the window, overseeing the empty street. He leans his head against the glass and closes his eyes for a second, embracing the cold of it.   
A minute later he's startled again by the waitress as she puts a mug of steaming hot coffee in front of him. He gives her a friendly, but tired smile and idly starts to stir his coffee. He's transfixed by the dark liquid forming a vortex, he's stirring faster and faster, the lights dancing in the liquid, like fishes in the sea, playing catch. His coffee is nearly overspilling and he knows he should stop, but he can't, his mind unable to control his hands. Every sound is tuned out. Then there is the sound of glass hitting tiled floor, the crash too loud for his ear, but his trance his broken. It's in that moment when he looks up and sees the waitress gathering the shards under a flickering neon light, hears the couple giggling in their booth, a car driving too fast past the diner, when everything seems surreal. Time has stopped. The fine hairs on his arms are rising as he realizes how magical this place really is.   
How, for the first time in his life, he feels like he's truly where he's supposed to be.   
Adam's slipping out of his booth to help the waitress and when she looks up and gives him a warm smile, a real smile, he knows that their fates are somehow bound together.   
He allows his heart an excited flutter.


	3. Chapter 3

After they cleaned up, the waitress, Blue, brings two plates filled to the brim with food to his table and sits down on the opposite side of him. There where no eggs on his plate, but a giant burger complete with bacon and fries. "Shut up", Blue said when he opened his mouth, "they're on the house, Moms orders. A thank you for the help." She shrugs and takes a hearty bite of her burger, urging him to do the same.  
The burger is delicious - exactly the right meat, salad, tomato and bacon ratio. And the fries are the perfect mix of fatty and salty. Adam honestly can't remember ever eating anything as delicious. Blue seems pleased with his reaction and is nudging his foot with hers under the table. Up close she's even more beautiful, he notices. Her nose is small and slightly upturned, a few freckles are dotting it here and there and she has a cute little mole on the outer corner of her right eye. He has a feeling in his stomach that has nothing to do with his hunger. He swallows and stares at his fries.  
Adam tries not to think about how he might look - his dirt colored hair still damp from the shower and in dire need of a haircut, dark and deep circles under his eyes, his cheekbones standing out too far over his sunken cheeks.  
"So what brings you here?", Blue asks, gently hitting his foot under the table. "Let me guess - runaway vigilante?" Her voice is so serious as she says it, letting a fry disappear in her mouth, that he actually has to laugh. The novelty of that sensation hitting him hard, and he has to swallow again. "Cut the vigilante and you get the jackpot." She throws her fist in the air in victory, big smile on her face. "Gotcha."  
Talking with Blue is surprisingly easy - they find common ground pretty easily and their humor work together perfectly. Adam and Blue spend the following hours talking, sharing stories and it feels like they've known each other for forever. When they finally break up, it's past noon and the dinner is filled with guests. It was a weird feeling, knowing that he hadn't registered how much time had passed, that he had be completely und totally engaged with another human being, that he had liked it. Adam Parrish had found his first friend. 

Blue walks him to his door, explaining the meaning of all the flowers. Apparently some distant aunt of her, Cornelia, thinks that flowers can prevent the evil and give protection and came here soon after they bought the hotel with three carloads worth of flowers. "Everyone else just thinks they look nice", she says with a shrug. He promises Blue not to run away while she sleeps and to visit her in the diner in the evening, then, without changing his clothes, he falls had first into the bed and sinks into deep, dreamless sleep. Adam gets woken up too soon by a sharp bang on his door. He grumbles into his pillow, judging by the sun still streaming into his room, it's late afternoon. The clock on his wrist tells him, it's just past six. "Coming!", he manages as he stumbles out of bed. When he opens the door he is greeted by a tall brown woman, eyeing him from heavy-lidded eyes. She's wearing a blue denim overall over a bright orange top and a heavy gold chain around her neck. "So you're the magician?", she asks, clearly unimpressed. 

Adam's still disoriented, so it takes him a moment to catch up with her words. "Uh, actually I'm a mechanic?", he tries, running one hand through his hair - he hates looking disheveled. She smiles at his words, straight white teeth flashing in the sunlight. "Get dressed and see me downstair in ten", are her last words before she turns around around and leaves. Adam closes the door and leans against it for a minute, mentally running through the moments before him again. Blue told him about the women living here, some distant relatives or friends always visiting and helping out, or temporarily opening their businesses here, before they move on to the next town. According to her, her whole family is psychic, the full reading cards, hands and tea leaves, telling deaths and everything psychic. Some of them even dabbling in witchcraft and a selected few even in demonology. But the last were all "bone shit crazy" and only visiting maybe once a year. Still, with a sigh he went to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth, then changed into clean clothes and with a last, longing look back to his bed he stepped into the warm evening sun and locked his door. 

The woman was impatiently waiting at the parking lot, leaned against the wall, white headphones dangling from one of her ears. ABBA was singing about dancing queens. The gave him a once-over, then stepped back from the wall, signaling him to follow her and lead him around the main building of the motel, past a shabby blue little house to what seemed like a garage. She fished a key out of her pocket and unlocked a door at the left of the building before going in. With a raised eyebrow and his hands in his pockets he followed her inside, just as she turned on the light - a single light bulb hanging from the roof. There was an old, green, beat up Toyota in the middle of the garage. it was covered in scratches and dents, the license plate hanging loosely on one side. Adam's eyebrows nearly disappeared in his hair.

"Here's the deal, pretty boy: you work your magic on that piece of shit and you get room and food for free, for as long as it takes you to get that running."  
"So forever then?" Adam sighs and starts circling the car. Up close its even worse - there's even a window missing. That could honestly take forever. The girl just laughs.  
"Why don't you just bring it to a repair shop? There's one a town over-", he's cut off by a dismissive flick of her hand.  
"Because you need magic to get that garbage running again, magician."  
"Adam", he corrects her.  
"Orla", she introduces herself, then ask: "Are you in?"  
Adam runs a hand through his hair, fighting a yawn. Everyone with at least a bit brain left would suggest just taking that thing to the junkyard and let it rot there. He could just leave, go on with his live and find a job. But then again, that hadn't really worked for him so far and a comfortable bed and warm meals where just too good to reject.  
"I'll need tools and coffee, a shit ton of coffee actually", is all he answers. 

And that's how he spends the following days and then weeks at the motel. Most days he's just in the back, repairing the car while the old radio he borrowed from the woman, who greeted him on his first day, Persephone, is playing old classics. Most of the days it's unbearably hot in the garage, the air too hot to breath, the smell of hot metal and rubber thick in the air. He doesn't bother with shirts on those days, wears only his old jeans, complete with giant holes on his knees. Blue had offered to sew patches on them, but the only ones she'd had were giant neon yellow flowers and he had politely declined. Blue likes sewing things and crafting, creating her own clothes and decorations, that's only one of the many things he'd learned about Blue Sargent in the past weeks. It's still new and weird to him, that he has a friend now, someone who comes visiting him with trays of sandwiches and coffee, forces him to take a break and go easy on himself. 

Someone who sits with him for hours while he disassembles an engine and keeps him company with her chatter, someone who helps him clean the parts of the engine, while singing along to songs from "The Kinks", because apparently her mothers new lover has a thing for them ("So, you mean he has a kink for them?", he had asked, trying not to laugh. Blue had just rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair, greasy, dirty fingers and all. "Not funny, Parrish, not funny."). It's new letting his guard down like that. He's worked with a lot of different people over the years, made some acquaintances, but he was always careful about what he said and how he said it. Always painfully aware of his southern drawl, his words a constant reminder that he comes from nothing and is nothing. But living with Blue and her every changing crowd of women start to change that. With Blue he's less reserved, makes jokes and laughs. He learns a lot about reading cards from her mother Maura and her friends Calla and Persephone. They tell him he has a natural feeling for the cards and they're truly surprisingly easy to understand, their meaning carved into him like the ability to walk. Laying them is as natural as breathing. "Magician", they call him and he starts to feel it. 

Adam knows he should be happy, should try to make a home here amongst those strange and wonderful people, but he can't. His hands begin to itch, his body and mind starting to get nervous, something's crawling under his skin, wanting to break out to get away. He fights it everyday, but it get's stronger and stronger and Adam's never been a good fighter. He's a coward. A runaway.  
"A nothing", a voice in his head says.  
"Magician", something else whispers quietly back.

"So, Mom and Persephone say you'll leave us soon.", Blue states that evening as they're lying in the grass, the sky a clear dark blue, stars dancing above them.  
Adam is quiet for a moment, then he sighs: "I guess so. I've been here longer than usual."  
It takes a long moment for Blue to answer, then it's quiet, tentative, like she's unsure how he'll react. It's unusual and makes him crinkle his nose. His confusion written all over his face.  
"Can I come with you?"  
The world is quiet around them, they're far behind the motel building so the sound of the cars rushing by doesn't reach them. Just the sound of the crickets surrounding them, the moon watching over them. It's risky traveling together, he's bound to another person, it's unnecessary weight. He'll have to talk to her about which places to go to, when to leave a place. He'll lose his freedom. And his loneliness.  
"Sure."  
It passes his lips easily, light as feather, a weight on his shoulders, a twist in his stomach.  
She 

The following days are packed with packing and making plans. Blue is good at planning trips, unlike Adam she doesn't look for the fastest way possible but researches gas stations and stores along the lines, throwing in places of interest here and there. She prints out everything interesting and keeps it in a binder. Adam gets scold for not driving with a map before and not keeping pens and pencils in his car. He also learns that apparently books are as important as food and water in a car and you can't have a road trip without knitting supplies. Everyone ins Blues family seems weirdly unfaded by her traveling with a stranger, but they even give them food and clothes (Adam needs a second bag after nearly every woman dropped clothes of their Exes on him).  
His most valuable gift comes from Persephone though. Although she still makes him shiver sometimes, when she looks at him from those mirror dark eyes, he has learned to take her seriously, to listen closely to her readings. Their meaning sometimes only coming clear after running through them repeatedly. She was also the one who mostly thought him how to read the cards. Both of them unable to sleep sitting in the little booth drinking herbal tea, that's supposed to open the mind, but smells suspiciously like weed. Persephone's deck is the one he's most familiar with, her cards the one he understands the best. Maura's or Calla's cards are never as clear to him as hers. It's weird, but it hurts a little to part from them now, like he's leaving back a part of his personality. 

He's surprised when she hands him the small black satin pouch where she keeps her cards. Adam doesn't say anything, just looks at his hand, feeling the weight of the cards and not feeling them in his hands. Complete. There's a long silence between them, then she moves one hand to his cheek, softly brushing her thumb over his cheek. "Death will be kind to you", are her final words to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say hi to me on [tumblr](the-dreamer-cycle.tumblr.com)!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](www.gayswaren.tumblr.com)
> 
> Comments, suggestions or criticism are always welcome :)


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